


Just My Father's Son

by afrocurl



Category: X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Post-Canon, Reconciliation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-06
Updated: 2014-12-06
Packaged: 2018-02-28 05:20:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2720186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afrocurl/pseuds/afrocurl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pietro comes to Charles Xavier's mansion and soon learns more about himself than he imagined before.</p><p>Erik Lehnsherr returns to Charles' mansion and has to learn the consequences of his actions - both small and large.</p><p>Together they must also learn to know each other, not only as captive and savior, but as father and son.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just My Father's Son

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



Magneto’s little display leaves all of DC - and the world - reeling. It is easier then, given everything, for Pietro to leave home and head up to that dope man’s school and actually do something for the world. He knows his mom is tired of his bullshit and all his lies. Going into the unknown sounds much better than being a disappointment to her.

Because Charles Xavier, even if he looked like a typical guy who enjoyed Woodstock a bit too much, is a good man. He means well. Even if he didn’t mean well when Pietro helped to break Magneto out of jail. Or maybe he had meant well and Magneto ruined it all. There is probably a story about why Magneto always does shit like that, but Pietro hasn’t bothered to ask. Yet. 

Pietro still thinks that everything about Magneto is his mom’s friend she always mentioned. The look on his face when Pietro said it was almost enough confirmation, but not quite. Maybe Magneto is his father, but he can’t ask Mom. He thinks asking Charles might be better.

But once he’s in Westchester, there’s no time to ask. Time is better spent pulling weeds, righting the house for it to be a school again; getting Charles ready to face the world.

When they aren’t busy making this mansion feel like a school, Charles has Alex and Hank help him with his power. Pietro hadn’t thought that he needed help, but Charles is quick to point out that even skill can be honed and refined.

For now, it’s not about being fast, it’s about being accurate. Alex wants him to stop a blast from his chest by creating a shield across the bunker. Hank wants him to avoid knocking over glasses of water through a maze.

Charles, on days when he makes it down to the bunker, wants him to be responsible in his use of powers. They talk about why Pietro stole (shits and giggles) and what motivated him to take things (again, shits and giggles) and Charles points out that those reasons aren’t good enough.

Pietro starts - slowly for a change - to think that maybe these three guys had the right idea all along. 

-

It still makes Hank think of the Pietro he first met when compared to the boy he knows now.

Fifteen weeks after Pietro showed up - five weeks after Magneto’s grandstanding in DC- there’s no sign of the boy who stole everything he could.

In his place, there’s a young man who starts to think of consequences, who thinks of the trickle down effect from one single decision.

Pietro looks more and more like Charles’ student and not the son of Magneto. Because that’s what Pietro is - Charles had confided in both he and Alex about that, shortly after Pietro arrived at the door in a flash - and that hasn’t changed who Pietro is.

Sure, it explains a bit about Pietro’s attitude about what he stole and why Pietro’s wit has shades of Erik’s cruel tongue, but it doesn’t explain much else.

It’s a very good reason why Hank is not into psychology but Charles is. Hank contents himself with seeing Pietro’s speed progress in the danger room - both in terms of accuracy and finesse - and makes notes so that the team can still work on how much more Pietro can improve.

Staring at the three sets of results from each of the previous benchmarks, Hank lets his mind drift off before it’s interrupted by Charles’ mental voice.

 _Magneto’s arrived. You should be aware._ It doesn’t feel like the message is just for Hank alone, so Hank stops his work and heads up to the foyer to greet Magneto while assuming the worst.

-

Charles let him leave. Allows him the chance to do the work he’s wanted to do.

Only there’s nothing so covert that he can act on following everything that happened in Washington. Nixon’s taken down Trask on his own - funding striped and contracts negated; Charles, Alex and Hank have started to reestablish the school.

It all leaves Erik adrift.

Even in prison, there was a purpose; he was furthering his goal of raising awareness of mutants, albeit in a way that is small in scale. Now, however, there is no purpose.

No goal that he can achieve in his usual manner. So, after weeks of roaming from city to city - reacquainting himself with the world - he thinks there’s no other place to go than Westchester.

Without a helmet, he knows that Charles will feel him, but he’s nowhere else to go.

He has nothing to do. He hasn’t felt so helpless since he first failed his family. Knowing himself as he does now, that failure is written all over his face, no more so than when he knocks on the door.

Behind the door he can feel Charles’ chair, the screws of Hank’s glasses, rivets of Alex’s jeans and the metal of a set of headphones.

The only person he knows who wears them is Pietro. Pietro’s come to train with them? It seems strange since Pietro seemed like the sort of lone wolf Erik’s been.

Times change, however, he remembers just as the door opens and Hank stands on the other side.

“Hello, Magneto,” he says.

“It’s Erik, again. I can’t do anything as him now.”

Hank doesn’t nod, but Charles hums a bit and Alex glares. Pietro just looks at him before he speeds away.

“Come in then, Erik. You and I have things to discuss.”

Erik walks slowly behind Charles, feeling more and more ill at ease with this decision.

“I’m glad you came,” Charles says when they finally enter Charles’ new study. He should mind that Charles’ reading his mind, but after all these years apart, it means so much to have Charles more like he was when they first me. “You flatter me.”

“I didn’t have a chance to tell you that after the Pentagon. We weren’t given the chance.”

“Then, let’s start there. We’ll discuss Pietro later.”

“If you’re just going to peak at what I have to think, I think Pietro should be our first conversation.”

“Then let me begin.”

-

Nervous energy runs through him as soon as Charles and Erik leave for the study. He’s sure that Charles will bare all his secrets, and he wants to hate Charles for that.

It took weeks for Pietro to tell Charles of everything he knew about his mother. How she had another daughter who died in a fire, about how he had a twin sister who was living with his aunt. Charles said that when they were younger Erik’s mind had often gone back to a fire - a wife who left - but came back later for one last night.

“You’re his son,” Charles said, with a tear in his eye.

Knowing that, and knowing that Erik is here again, it makes Pietro want to run.

Hank and Alex have stayed close to him, and silently they both nod at him when he finally stops looking off into space.

He runs, runs and runs and runs. Until he just stops in the danger room, fast asleep.

A hand shakes him awake, but it doesn’t feel like Alex’s or Hank’s. Eyes opening slowly, Pietro sees Erik staring back to him, concern putting a knot between Erik’s eyebrows.

“I’m sorry,” he says and offers a hand to help Pietro up.

Refusing is easier to do, and so Pietro shifts away from him and gets up.

“You should be, asshole. Just because Charles told you what you didn’t know doesn’t mean we’re father and son. We’re not. We’re just two guys who share some genetic material.”

Erik walks away - surprisingly - and Pietro leaves soon after, giving himself more time to think of what might happen if they continue to share space in the mansion together.

-

Tension fills the house after Erik arrives, and without asking Charles, no one bothers to try and dissipate any of the thick cloying air. Hank feels it every time they eat together and wants so much to break free of the fog, but Charles always mentally says, _Leave it be._

This all reminds Hank of what the mansion was like after Charles sent Moira away and he wallowed, but somehow this is more pervasive.

It leaks into the wood and clings. 

-

At each turn he tries to talk to Pietro about their lives, Pietro leaves. Erik thinks it more penance for all those sins he’s committed, even if Charles tries to muddle the idea.

 _Leave me to this,_ he says when he feels Charles’ slow and careful work.

_It won’t help. You need to give him time._

_Time has already been wasted. I won’t let it continue._

_For once, this isn’t about you want, but about what he needs._

Erik deflates, knowing that Charles is mostly right. Doesn’t stop himself from hating it all the same.

Weeks continue to pass like that before it becomes the new norm that Erik thinks of as his new lot in life.

-

Erik hasn’t arrived for his class yet and even though Pietro gives his father a wide birth most days, it’s never like him to be late. Mentally he checks in with Charles - Charles always knows what goes on in Erik’s mind - and finds that Charles is surprisingly noncommittal about it.

So, Pietro leaves the class in the room with orders to stay here, unless you want to be pinned to the ceiling, and heads towards Erik’s room.

The door’s closed, but through it, Pietro hears something that sounds like muffled sobs.

“Erik, you’re late to class. Is there anything I can do?”

Silence greets him for a long moment before there are some faint noises around the room and then a slip of paper slides under the door.

_I’m taking a personal day. Please cancel all of my classes. You may ask the reason later, should your curiosity be piqued. Otherwise, only Charles is to visit._

Pietro looks up again after he finishes reading, but the door remains closed. 

Erik’s class deserves to know they’re no longer required to stay there, but Pietro thinks he might return later to ask.

-

The thirtieth anniversary of V-E Day looms and Erik feels himself again falling into memories that he wants to forget. Pietro had found him on the anniversary of his power’s manifesting and realizing that he had all but killed his father that day last year and it had been awkward to explain why he had taken that personal day.

Everyone knows what today is, however, and the students give Erik room to move as if he’ll have a repeat of the last one.

The nightly news has a small story on it, and as soon as it finishes, Pietro walks over, carefully putting a hand on Erik’s shoulder with a quick squeeze.

It means more to Erik than he wants to say aloud, and so he says nothing.

-

Holidays at the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters are an affair by any standard. But this year, they are more festive. 

One of the new students this year is Jewish and so Charles suggests to Erik that they celebrate Hanukkah as well in the staff meeting.

“It’s been so long since I did anything with it, but I’m sure I can make a Hanukkiah for the occasion.”

Pietro pipes up, “Mom had us celebrate when she remembered. I can help.”

It shocks Erik to hear that Pietro’s mother thought to give them some of his traditions, and so he smiles quickly before schooling his face again, letting Charles’ remaining remarks for the staff meeting wash over him.

He and Pietro can celebrate a holiday together for the first time. Their relationship has been less stilted of late, but still not what he wants to imagine most families have.

Still, this is a start. One he’ll gladly take.

-

More than three years after Pietro and Erik each reentered Charles life, the two of them finally settle their differences. Charles feels the house let go of something - all of a sudden - when he knows that everyone’s watching some of the Olympic coverage.

Charles hones in on where Erik and Pietro are - each yelling at the television - and for the first time in ages, the lives of father and son are intertwined.

Never has it been easy to watch Erik and Pietro bicker and fight and then ignore each other, but he won’t look into the hows or the whys of this reconciliation.

He’s just happy to know it finally happened.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to **Di** for the beta and constant support.
> 
> Title from "My Little Town" by Simon and Garfunkel, which came out in 1975.


End file.
